Disclock
by Ralspudzinmoose
Summary: If BBC Sherlock were on the Disc...


"John? John Wathon?"

John dug the end of his staff into the cobbles and hobbled faster along the road. There was no mistaking that lisp in a month of Sundays.

"It ith! It`th John Wathon, Ithn`t it?"

If only to stop the flagrant abuse of `s`s, John reluctantly pulled to a halt and turned to brave a smile. A round face like a reconstructed pumpkin beamed back at him.

John spoke. "Igor, Hi. Long time no see." It was hard, now he was looking, not to stare. Igors, even thoroughly modern ones, always looked a bit uncomfortably odd, and the man* before him was no exception. John always felt a bit like he was trying one of those Klatchian eye puzzles where you had to spot which thing was not like the rest of the picture, only in this case, it was nearly everything.

"Yeth, yeth, I know, I got thome new armth. The old oneth packed in, and it`th `Mike` now, inthidentally." Mike nee Igor patted at his various (by no exaggeration) appendages.

"I see."

"Got to keep up with the timeth. How have you been? Latht I heard you were down Omnia way getting thot at. What happened?"

"I got thot- err yeah, shot."

Mike nodded, eyeballing John`s leg in a manner quite similar to an epicure eyeing up a bald eagle fricasse.

"Yeth, I can thee that. Thould have given me a clack. I`ve got thome lovely thpare legth in at the moment. Very robust- no thtay!" Mike added, hastily apologetic as John had shifted backwards somewhat abruptly. They`d always been rather at odds when the topic of mix-and-match limbs came into question.

"Let me get you a cup of coffee." Mike offered, holding his own cup in demonstration.

"What...sort is that?" John asked, not to be rude but because this was a fairly sensible question to ask in a city where the river-water occasionally had to be helped along by a team of golems with large shovels.

Mike looked in the cup. "Hot and brown. It`th not a Dibbler-I checked."

"Oh, it`s improved then. Alright." John eased himself onto the doorstep beside Mike, who gave him another Jack o`lantern grin.

"Thank the thudenth," he said, and then waddled over to fetch John a cup from the stall.

"Seems busy around here," John said when he got back.

"Oh yeth, it`th all going on in thethe parth," Mike waved a many-fingered hand around to gesture to the general vicinity; the street locked in the shadow of the Unseen University, and the tangle of little streets around it`s walls. "Weekly football leagueth, clubth; there`th even a branch of the Guild of theamthtretheth down the road."

Mike waited politely for John to make the phonological hurdles over all the `th`s.

"Seamstresses?" John hazarded after a moment.

"Well done, yeth. And," Mike leaned in closer, "They only do actual thewing."

"Blimey."

"It`th all going on around here," Mike repeated, leaning back against the wall contentedly.

John propped himself on his staff, sipped his cup of `hot and brown` and gazed up at the crooked Tower of Arts. Around them Anhk-Morpork buzzed with the perpetual hum of a home that had always been more of a home to him than his actual one, and yet he felt alienated. It was like all the years of sand had grated over him and erased anything of the man he`d been before.

`Should have joined the Klatchian Foreign Legion** after all,` he thought.

"Come and have a look around," Mike prompted him, as though reading his thoughts. "We`ve got some great stuff going on in experimental medicine."

Perhaps it was only because Mike meant it so much that he`d forgotten to lisp, but John agreed.

...

"Changed a bit since my day," John said, leaning on the door handle and getting his breath back. In the last fifty years the experimental magic building had expanded exponentially* and the experimental medicine building was now twice the size he recalled from his early days at the university. The stairs were definitely more of a challenge, and not just because of his leg.

"Thudenth everywhere now too. Alwayth tripping over the little buggerth mething with thingth," Mike grumbled affably. "Maketh me feel like I need eyeth in the back of my head."

John surreptitiously leaned back to check that Mike didn`t in fact have eyes in the back of his head already. Entirely possible for someone from Uberwald.

"Not yet," Mike said, catching him at it. "I`ve got them on order though. That`th more of HEX, by the way." He pointed at the wall behind John. "We`ve got it inthalled through motht of the building now."

John looked at the wall and it`s spaghetti-like tangle of pipes and valves, some steaming gently, other bustling with live leaf-cutter ants. The computer, part magic, part sentience, was confined to the Ponder Experimental Arts building, but here its influence was total.

"Very high-tech," John agreed.

"Helpth with the work; you wouldn`t believe how much. You know," Mike nudged him with a mis-shapen elbow, his expression suddenly strongly reminiscent of an old pet dog John had had, albeit, the dog after it had had a run-in with a large wagon, rather than before. "We could alwayth do with a few more handth about the place. No, not literally, although I do thay you can`t have too many handth in thock, but I mean, a job."

"Here? At the university? I can`t teach, Mike."

"Good! That`th practically a job requirement. We don`t want teacherth in here- where do you think you are? The Quirm thchool for ladies? Look, you`re a doctor, John. We could uthe your expertithe."

John felt his heart sink a bit. He gripped his staff, the wood under his palm biting into the flesh comfortingly. "I don`t know, it`s all very..." He trailed off and waved a hand in frustration at all the machines and half-finished research projects littered about the room. "I- No. I don`t think there`s a place for me here."

To his surprise, Mike broke into a snuffling sort of laugh.

"What?"

"Nothing; you`re jutht not the firtht perthon to have thaid that to me today."

John looked at him, puzzled. Mike treated him to a slab of a smile.

"Come down to the morgue," he said.

...

Footnotes:

*Or technically speaking, men

** a segment of the army quite good for men who are done fighting and want to forget the war, provided they don`t mind forgetting everything else as well.


End file.
